


The Second-Greatest Camping Trip the World Has Ever Seen

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The spring after the Battle of Hogwarts, Angelina, wanting to help George get away from it all, arranges a camping trip with their friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Second-Greatest Camping Trip the World Has Ever Seen

Alicia had already taken a seat when Angelina came in the door of the café.  She waved when she saw her best friend, and Angelina waved back and came over, stooping down to give her a quick hug.  “I’m so glad we could make this work,” Alicia said.  “How’re you doing?”

“I’m doing great, thanks,” said Angelina.  “You?”

“Busy,” Alicia said.  “They don’t give us a whole lot of free time at Saint Mungo’s.  But I’m still really enjoying it.”

“Good,” said Angelina.  “What do you know about camping?”

This was a decided non sequitur, but Alicia decided that she might as well answer.  “Not much.  I know that Jeannie and Bob like to go with the kids.” 

“Oh, excellent,” said Angelina.  “Do they have any spare tents and stuff?”

“No clue.  I could ask, I suppose.”  Alicia raised an eyebrow.  “But before I go pestering my sister for camping equipment, do you mind telling me why you’ve developed this sudden interest?”

Angelina shrugged.  “I thought it might be fun.  Get away from everything for a while.”

“Is there something that you’re trying to get away from?”

Angelina shook her head.  “Not me.  George.”

“Have the two of you been hanging around together?” Alicia asked.  Angelina had mentioned running into George Weasley last month, after neither of them had seen him since the summer after the battle, but Alicia hadn’t known that there was any more to the story.

“A bit,” Angelina said.  “I think he’s having a hard time.  Wow, that sounds really obvious and patronizing.  But it’s true.  He’s like himself but also…not.  He seems to be working really hard, for one thing.  I’ve asked him out for drinks or whatever a couple of times, and it’s been weirdly difficult to convince him.  But when we do go it seems like he enjoys himself.  I don’t know.  He doesn’t talk about Fred or anything, and I obviously don’t want to pry, but…I don’t know…it’s obviously tough for him and I thought we could maybe get a bunch of us together and just do something fun.  Take our brooms and go camping for a few nights.  What do you think?  Would you be up for it?”

Alicia smiled at her friend.  “It sounds like a really good idea, actually,” she said.  “I’ve got to see if I can get the time off, of course, but I’d definitely be in if I can.”

“Great,” said Angelina.  “I thought we could ask Lee, too.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” said Alicia.  “And I’ll ask Jeannie about tents when I see her this weekend.  Have you asked George about this yet, by the way?”

“No, not yet,” said Angelina.  “We’re supposed to get together on Friday evening, so I’ll bring it up then.”  She leaned her chin on her hand, looking thoughtful.  As Alicia watched her, a suspicion came into her mind.

“Question,” she said.  “Is this entirely a ‘cheer up a friend’ thing?  Or is this an ‘I fancy this bloke’ thing?  What are we dealing with here?”

Angelina looked sheepish.  “A bit of both?  I’m not going to make a move or anything like that.  It’s not the right time.  And I do think that this trip is something that he would like.  But yeah, we’ve been spending a fair amount of time together and…you know.  He’s George.  We have a good time together.   So we’ll see.”

“Got it,” said Alicia.  She picked up her menu.  “We should probably order.”

 

“Would you cut it out?” Alicia asked.  “You’re blocking the whole sidewalk.  Honestly, sometimes you act like you’re twelve.” 

Lee grinned at her.  “My most humble apologies,” he said.  “I shall never dance down the sidewalk with my broom again.  I swear it.”  Alicia’s face remained annoyed at first, but when he swept her a low bow, she grinned back. 

He’d been surprised to hear from Angelina, but he’d immediately thought that the camping trip was a good idea.  It was an adventure, the sort of thing that you were supposed to do straight out of school.  He’d heard from older students about the trips that they’d taken the summer after they’d finished Hogwarts, but, for obvious reasons, most people their age hadn’t done anything like that.  And of course they’d all spent the past months just trying to get things back to some semblance of normal, which was necessary but often felt very serious.  Normality, in Lee’s opinion, didn’t have to be wholly serious; it could involve a bit of camping and flying and, yes, dancing down the sidewalk with brooms. 

“Oh, there’s George!” Angelina said.  She waved at him; he was approaching their spot behind the Leaky Cauldron, broom and rucksack in hand.

“Hello!” George said.   “We’re all here, I see.  How’ve you been, Alicia?  I haven’t seen you in months.”

“I’ve been pretty well, thanks,” said Alicia.  “I’m excited for this.  Nice to get away for a bit.”

“Agreed,” said George.  “I just hope that Ron doesn’t ruin the business in the next few days.”

Angelina laughed.  “Let’s hope he can handle it,” she said.  “Are we ready to go, then?”  Everyone nodded, and they all mounted their brooms and took off.

They’d selected Dartmoor for the trip, chiefly on the recommendation of Alicia’s older sister; she’d said that it wasn’t too long a broom flight from London and that the area was beautiful.  It was always hard to talk much when you were flying, and before long they found themselves conversing in short, shouted sentences—“Turn that way” and “Let’s go a little higher” and “Can we stop for a snack?”  This method of communication suddenly struck them all as hilarious at once, and they started laughing until they almost couldn’t stay on their brooms.

They’d left early enough in the morning that they arrived on Dartmoor soon after noon and set to work putting up their tent.   “Do we look unobtrusive enough?” Lee asked, looking at the tent.  “I don’t know what Muggles think tents are supposed to look like.  Wish your dad was here, George.”

“I think it’s all right,” Angelina said.  “Jeannie’s never had any problems, has she, Alicia?”

“Not that I know of,” said Alicia.  “Let’s eat lunch now and then have a look around.”

They settled down for lunch in front of the tent, sharing sandwiches and crisps.  George had brought some sweets, which he laid out innocently enough, but Lee thought that he detected a familiar look of mischief on his friend’s face.

He wasn’t the only one with suspicions.  “Do I want to eat this?” Angelina asked skeptically, holding up what appeared to be an ordinary chocolate.

“Of course you do,” George said.  “I’m insulted that you’d even ask.”

“I’m not so sure,” Angelina said.  “I don’t relish the prospect of spending the rest of the day puking my guts up.”

“You won’t,” said George.  “There are antidotes.”

“Oh, lovely!” said Angelina.  “I’ll be puking my guts up, but at least there are antidotes.”

“No, seriously,” George said.  “It’s not going to do anything bad to you.  I swear.”

“Fine, I’ll risk it,” Angelina said, popping the chocolate into her mouth.  Lee and Alicia watched her intently for a few moments, trying to figure out if the chocolate was as innocent as George claimed.  Nothing seemed to happen at first, and Alicia was even reaching for a chocolate herself when Angelina’s eyelashes suddenly started growing. 

“Antidote!  Antidote!” Angelina shouted as the eyelashes rapidly approached her chin.  “I can’t believe I fell for this.  Honestly, George, are you trying to kill me?”  She fell silent suddenly, her face flushing under the still-growing eyelashes, and they were all quiet for a moment.

George was the first to break the silence, handing her another candy with a quiet, “There’s the antidote.  Sorry.”  The moment still felt uncomfortable, though, and Lee decided that he ought to try to fix the mood.

“Nobody eat anything more of George’s,” he said.  “He’s proved he can’t be trusted.  Let’s do like Alicia said and have a look around.  I think there was a stream over that way.”  The plan seemed to meet with approval; everyone nodded and began to gather up the papers from lunch.  They were soon walking across the moor towards the stream that Lee had noticed.

The stream wasn’t particularly large, but it was cool and pleasant near it.  They walked alongside it for a while, talking about nothing in particular.  “We could go in,” Lee suggested.  “Swimming.”

Alicia made a face.  “It’s too cold for swimming, surely.”

“All right, we can paddle, then,” Lee said.  “Suit yourself.”

Nobody seemed particularly interested in swimming—March really was a bit cold for that—but they did take off their shoes and roll up their jeans and wade in for a few minutes.  It felt rather aimless, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

           

They were all in high spirits as they ate supper, and Angelina was glad of it.  That had been what she’d wanted, after all: to let all of them, especially George, have fun again.  Now, as they joked around the campfire, it almost felt like old times, like they were all back at Hogwarts, staying up late in the common room, maybe celebrating after a quidditch match.  They would all have been laughing and shouting, swapping sweets and jokes.  And George would have been taking the lead on that—George and Fred.

So it wasn’t like old times, of course, and it never would be.  Even though they were having fun, she’d been feeling it all day, especially after that awful moment when she’d thoughtlessly asked him if he was trying to kill her.  She’d got the sense that Alicia and Lee were feeling it too.  And if it was putting the three of them off balance, she couldn’t imagine what it was doing to George. 

She wasn’t sure what she should do.  The last thing that she wanted to do was to bother George, to make him talk about things that he didn’t want to talk about, to make him feel worse or to assume that she knew what was best for him.  She knew that she could never understand how he felt.  She’d been very lucky: losing any family member, let alone a twin, was something beyond her experience.  He seemed to be enjoying himself now—he was laughing with the rest of them, reminiscing about some great quidditch matches that they’d played in their days at Hogwarts—but she couldn’t know how he was really feeling.  She wanted to let him know that he could talk to her if he wanted, but she didn’t want to make things uncomfortable.

“There’s no question that Gryffindor quidditch has lost something since we all left,” George said.  “I went down for one of Ginny’s matches in the fall.  Competent, I suppose, but it lacked that something.  Probably because they didn’t have Wood’s fearless leadership.”

“I’d have thought that Ginny would be a good captain,” said Angelina.  “She’s got a strong will.”

“Yeah,” said George.  “I’m thinking that’s the problem.  She probably controls them by intimidation until they’re too scared to fly straight.”  He laughed, but it was clear that he was proud of his sister.

“And I’m sure the commentary wasn’t up to its old standard either,” Lee said, reaching over to take another marshmallow.

“What standard was that?” Angelina asked.  “The standard of you hitting on me and McGonagall shouting at you?”

“Exactly,” said Lee.  “Really high quality stuff.”

“Well, maybe the team’s glory days are over,” Alicia said, “but we should keep it up.  Play some more.”

“Definitely,” said Angelina.  “I miss playing with you lot.”

“And I haven’t seen Katie in ages,” Alicia said.  “It’d be really fun, getting everyone together.”

But they couldn’t get everyone together, of course, and the conversation suddenly didn’t seem as much fun.  Alicia fell silent, twisting a curl around her finger, and Lee seemed particularly intent on toasting his marshmallow in the dying fire.  George got to his feet after a few moments.  “I think I’ll walk up that hill over there,” he said, pointing.  “Get a better look at the stars and all that.”

“Do you want to be by yourself?” Angelina asked.

George looked at her for what seemed a long moment.  “No, you can come if you want,” he said.

Angelina rose to her feet, brushing off the back of her jeans quickly.  “We’ll see the two of you in a bit,” she said, smiling at Alicia and Lee.

“Of course,” Alicia replied.  And then they were off, walking together across the moor.

It didn’t take long to reach the top of the hill, and they sat there beside each other, not talking.  It was beginning to get a bit chilly, and Angelina wrapped her arms around her knees, folding herself up against the cold.  She wondered whether she should ask him how he was feeling.  She decided against it, then decided that the silence was too hard to bear. 

She would lead with a simpler question.  “Enjoying the trip?”

“Yeah,” George said, smiling at her.  “Thanks for cooking this whole thing up.  I mean it.  It’s been…it’s been good to get away for a bit.  I’ve basically been either in the shop or at the Burrow for the past year.  I’m trying to get out a bit more, but that’s how it’s been.”

“It must be a lot of work,” she said, “the shop.”

“Yeah,” George said.  “I mean, it’s what I want to be doing, but it’s tough to do alone.  Not really alone, because Ron’s there, but honestly he doesn’t really have the knack for it.  He tries and everything, but he doesn’t…he doesn’t really have ideas.  I can’t bounce things off him.”  He was quiet then, and, not knowing what to say, Angelina merely scooted closer to him.  “It’s really…really strange at home too,” he went on after a few moments.  “With my mum, especially.  She’s trying really hard to…to find stuff to do, I guess, so it’s back and forth between that and her being just really overwhelmed and upset.  And I understand that really well, obviously.  But it’s not like I can get out of myself there.  So yeah.  Thanks for arranging this.”

“Of course,” Angelina said.  “Of course.”  Still not liking the silence, she quickly added, “You’re my friend, George.  If you ever want to do this kind of thing, get away or whatever, just let me know.”

George nodded.  “Thanks,” he said.  He rummaged in his pocket and came up with two chocolate frogs.  “Want one?  They’re a little melted, but I promise they’re harmless this time.”

“Thanks.”  Angelina took one.  George took the other, and they both unwrapped their frogs.  “I got Merlin,” she said.  “How about you?”

George held out the card.  “Harry.”

“That upstart,” Angelina said, laughing.  George smiled, briefly, but then his face became serious, and he stared at the back of the card.

“God damn it,” he said, and his voice was quiet but it wasn’t calm.  “It’s everywhere, isn’t it?  You can’t even eat chocolate without reading about it.  We can’t even talk about Hogwarts or quidditch without thinking about it.  Even if we say we’re getting away from everything, we’re not.  We can pretend we are, but we aren’t.  I’m thinking about it all the time, everything I do.”  His head was down now, but Angelina still heard the choke in his voice.  “He’s supposed to be here.”

She couldn’t tell him that she knew how he felt—she couldn’t know—or that things would get better—who said they would?  “Oh, George,” she said, and she put an arm around his shoulders.

 

“And the letter is….h.”  Alicia poured more firewhiskey into both their cups and settled back.

“H.  Hippogriffs,” Lee said.

“Happy hippogriffs.”

“Highly happy hippogriffs.”

“Highly happy heavenly hippogriffs.”

“Highly happy heavenly hippogriffs humping,” Lee said.

“Ew,” Alicia said, but she wasn’t able to suppress a laugh.

“You laughed!” Lee said triumphantly.  “Drink!  Drink!”  Alicia picked up her cup of firewhiskey and drank.

“Wonder when Angelina and George’ll be back,” she said. 

“They probably won’t.  They probably got tired of us and decided to leave,” said Lee.  “Seriously, though, they’d better get back soon if they want any of the firewhiskey.  We’re making quite a dent in it.”

“Yeah.”  Alicia picked up the bottle.  She wondered what Angelina and George were doing and hoped that things were going okay.  George hadn’t seemed in the highest of spirits when they’d left, and now it had been almost an hour.  She and Lee had passed the time, enjoyably enough, in playing rigmarole.  She was better at remembering the strings of words, but he was better at making her laugh by making them lewd.  They were pretty well matched, in other words, and while she was starting to feel the effects of the firewhiskey, she wasn’t anywhere close to under the table.

“You want to pick the letter this time?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Lee.  “How about s?”

“Skrewts.”

“Skrewts screwing.” 

She started laughing again.  “Ugh.  Damn you.  What a revolting image.”  She drank.  “Do they even do that anyway?”

“Oh yeah,” said Lee.  “It’s really hot.”

“Not exactly the word I would have chosen, but no judgment.”

“Seriously, those things were the worst,” said Lee.  “Still have a burn on my elbow from trying to handle them.  What was Hagrid thinking?”

“Not sure he was, to be honest,” said Alicia.  She poured herself more firewhiskey and took a sip.  “Come to think of it, our professors did a lot of messed-up things.”

“It’s true,” said Lee.  “Especially in Defense.  Even if the position was cursed, some things are just beyond what you’d expect.”

“Remember Holmes?” Alicia asked. 

“Doubt I could forget,” said Lee.  “Welcome to Hogwarts, first-years!  Let’s terrify you with stories about nundus.”  He took a sip of his drink.  “What ever happened to her, anyway?”

“Left to do field research,” said Alicia.  “I heard she got eaten.”

“Pity,” said Lee.  He picked up the bottle and poured more firewhiskey into both their cups.  “Shall we play another round?”

 

It was getting colder now, George noticed dimly.  They’d been sitting out here for a while, after all.  He wondered if Alicia and Lee were worried about them, if they should head back to the tent, but he didn’t feel quite together enough to do so.

He hadn’t meant to break down.  Well, he supposed no one ever meant to break down, but he really hadn’t wanted to do it here.  He’d known that Angelina had wanted this trip to be a chance for them to have fun and to get away from the constant reminders of the war, and he’d gotten the sense that she wanted that for him, especially.  Coming from some people, that would have felt condescending, but he liked Angelina enough that he hadn’t minded.  He’d thought that there was probably some sense in her idea, and he’d decided to try to throw himself into it, to have fun with his friends like they were back at school and not to worry about what would happen if he left Ron to take care of the shop alone.  It would make Angelina happy, he’d thought, and it might be good for him.  And now that had all gone to hell.

He had been having fun, but at the same time he’d been realizing how stupid it was to think that he could get away from reminders.  Not when he could tell how hard the others were trying not to upset him.  Not when every story from their Hogwarts days involved Fred.  And then that stupid chocolate frog card had turned up, reminding them how close they’d been to the war, how much it had changed everything.

It had just been too much for him then.  He’d started to cry in earnest when Angelina put her arm around him, and he’d done that on and off for almost half an hour now, in between telling her how much he missed Fred, how everything felt incomplete now.  Even this didn’t feel like enough; he could tell Angelina that he missed Fred with everything he had, and the words still didn’t begin to cover what he felt.  The way he sometimes, for half a second when he woke up in the mornings, forgot.  The way that he was never able to forget. 

He was making this camping trip into a really depressing outing, he thought dimly.  If Fred were here, he would have long ago punched him in the shoulder and told him to stop his moaning, and, thinking of that, George tried to do the same thing for himself.

He took a deep breath.  “God, I’m sorry, Angelina,” he said.  “I don’t mean to be ruining the trip.”

Angelina shook her head and squeezed his shoulders.  “Don’t worry about it,” she said.  “You have nothing to be sorry for, George.  Do what you need to do.  I’m happy to listen if you need me to.”  She looked sad but not annoyed.

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he finally settled for, “Thanks.  I just…thanks, Angelina.”  He noticed that the chocolate frog was still clutched in his hand, mostly melted now, and he ate it, half-laughing.   “We should probably get back,” he said.  “Don’t want to freak out Lee and Alicia.”

“If you want to,” said Angelina.  “They don’t seem to have sent the search parties out for us yet, though, so it’s up to you.”

“Yeah, let’s get back,” said George.  He raised himself to his feet and then extended the non-chocolaty hand to help Angelina up.  She squeezed his hand once she was up, and their hands remained together as they walked back to the tent.

“We’re back,” Angelina called as they stepped inside the tent.

“Great!” Alicia said.  She and Lee were seated at the table, drinking firewhiskey.  “How were the stars?”

Right, that was the excuse he’d given.  “Bright,” he replied.  “What’ve you two been up to?”

“Drinking,” said Lee, “and talking about all the crap professors we had.”

“Were you talking about Holmes?” Angelina asked, taking a seat.

“Naturally,” said Lee.  “And Hagrid.  And Binns.  And fake Moody.  And all the rest of that sorry lot.”

“Aw, Hagrid meant well,” said Angelina.  “But you’re right.  I can hardly believe we managed to make it out of there.”

Alicia started to giggle.  “Do you remember the time that Lockhart—”  They all knew that she was thinking of the hair incident, and they started to laugh before she had finished.

George didn’t talk much as the night wore on, as they laughed over their old professors and played drinking games with what Alicia and Lee had left of the firewhiskey.  But he sat there among them, with Angelina’s arm around him again, and was glad, at least, of his friends. 


End file.
